Construction of an International Public Health Model: Rockefeller Foundation Yellow Fever Laboratories program in the United States, South America and Africa (1935-1950)

Author(s)

Aleidys Hernandez Tasco

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Geociências
• Defense date: 2016-12-16

Examining board members

Cristina de Campos; Rita de Cassia Marques; Maria Gabriela Silva Martins Cunha Marinho; Silvia Fernanda de Mendonça Figueirôa; Rafael de Brito Dias

• Advisor: Cristina de Campos

Abstract

This Ph.D. thesis aimed to analyze the course of the Rockefeller Foundation's yellow fever program, which lasted more than 30 years (1916 to 1950). Such a program was divided into two steps, the first one through anti-larval campaigns, in cooperation and partnerships with governments of different Latin American countries where the disease was notified. The second step was characterized by the construction of laboratories strategically located in Brazil, Colombia, Uganda and Nigeria, which in turn were driven by a central laboratory located in the United States. The main goal of this research project was to conduct a historical-analytical study of the Rockefeller Foundation's yellow fever program. Among the most important contributions of this research, it can be highlighted that the yellow fever was a disease that provided a platform for dialogues between countries and laid the foundations for building the concept of international health, promoting the idea that the medical knowledge does not have national limits, and the international borders do not form any barrier against the disease. In addition, it was possible to identify that the activities of the Rockefeller Foundation were of an interventionist nature, but the value achieved by them in the development of international health was unprecedented. There is no doubt that the Rockefeller Foundation was one of the institutions that actively participated in the field of public health, contributing to the dissemination and consolidation of a universal health model. One of its clearer policies was in relation to the laboratory, from the 1930's it became the backbone for modern and preventative health. On the other hand, it was identified that between 1935 and 1950, the Rockefeller Foundation managed to organize a network of scientific connections in the American and African continent, it was at this moment that tropical medicine ceased to be seen as acts of scientific philanthropy to become a discipline of knowledge production. This historical research evidenced the power of the Rockefeller Foundation to spread, as its leadership was able to unite different countries to solve a common problem that would benefit the whole world by promoting a field that would formulate over time a public health model based on laboratory research, which remains nowadays. The most important contribution of this thesis was to demonstrate that without the help and willingness of governments - from Brazil as well as from Colombia and the colony of Nigeria and the Uganda protectorate - the world project would not have been possible The connection between researchers and governments was valuable in contributing to the organization of the discipline that is now known as international health (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 13/13033-4 - International scientific relations: The yellow fever laboratories program of the Rockefeller Foundation in the United States, South America and Africa (1935-1947)
• Grantee: Aleidys Hernandez Tasco
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate